Wilmington, Delaware - Kytch, the startup that invented a device to keep McDonald's soft serve machines running, is suing the fast food chain for $900 million in damages.

Screaming for ice cream is a true problem at McDonald's, as their ice cream machines are infamously always broken. There is a whole website, McBroken, dedicated to tracking the frequent breakdowns.

Even the golden arches themselves have publicly poked fun at the issue on their Twitter account, as the complaint filed by Kytch on Tuesday points out.

It appears the company doesn't find the running joke so funny.

The new lawsuit focuses on emails sent by the food giant to McDonald's franchises around the US in November 2020. In these emails, McDonald's told locations to pull the Kytch devices from their ice cream machines.

They also warned franchise owners that Kytch's device was a safety threat and could lead to "serious human injury." The emails also claim that the device violated warranties of the machines and intercepted "confidential information."

Co-founders of Kytch, Melissa Nelson and Jeremy O'Sullivan, describe these claims as false and defamatory, and are requesting $900 million in damages to prove the point.

Kytch spent years developing their phone-sized device to help keep the temperamental McDonald's ice cream machines serving soft serve.

The device intercepts the ice cream machines' internal communications and sends issues to a web or smartphone interface, which allowed owners to remotely monitor and troubleshoot the machines' multiple problems. An ice cream machine "hacking device," if you will.

According to Wired, the devices – first sold and installed in 2019 – initially appeared to improve the fixes to the issues. They seemed to have saved the franchises thousands in servicing fees, increased sales, and kept the machines running, avoiding the "hours of downtime" when the machines' "finicky daily pasteurization cycle failed," the suit claimed.

Kytch said McDonald's pulled their device in favor of their longtime partner Taylor, the manufacturer of McDonald's ice cream machines, who was developing a similar product.

This isn't Kytch's first lawsuit involving the machine manufacture. They sued Taylor and its distributor TFG for theft of trade secrets in May 2021.

According to its newest complaint against McDonald's, Kytch claims that pulling its devices led to even more ice cream machine meltdowns. It also cut the startup's legs out from under them just as their business starting to take off, as McDonald's allegedly warned other food companies, like Burger King and Coca-Cola, of the so-called "safety issues" with Kytch's device.

According to Kytch founder Nelson, "McDonald's had every reason to know that Kytch was safe and didn't have any issues. It was not dangerous, like they claimed. And so we're suing them."

The jury is out on whether any given Mickey D's' ice cream machine will actually be up and running.